Supporting the Evolution of Workflow Patterns for Virtual Communities

Virtual communities that make use of network information systems (NIS) have a need for specification support that agrees with their communal character. System specification changes must be acceptable to all members for a community to thrive. This requirement holds in particular for workflow-enabling communication tools that are part of the NIS. In the first place, it means that workflow processes can be modelled at an abstraction level that makes sense to the community members. To this purpose, a layered architecture of workflow patterns is described that is rooted in Language/Action theory. Patterns for all levels can be stored in a component library and be (re)-used effectively by communities to speed up their NIS development and evolution. To ensure the acceptability of changes in workflow patterns, the evolution process must be supported by a method for legitimate user-driven specification.

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